


Sweet Red

by januarywren



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adult Hermione Granger, Adultery, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bittersweet Ending, Breeding Kink, Childhood Friends, Come Eating, Cunnilingus, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Dark Fantasy, Doggy Style, Dubious Morality, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Enthusiastic Consent, F/M, Herbologist Neville Longbottom, Hermione Granger Needs a Hug, Hermione Granger-centric, Hogwarts Forbidden Forest, Manipulative Tom Riddle, Marking, Mating, Minor Neville Longbottom/Hermione Granger, Miscarriage, Neville Longbottom is a Good Friend, Obsession, POV Hermione Granger, POV Tom Riddle, Possessive Tom Riddle, Professor Neville Longbottom, Romance, Sane Tom Riddle, Shameless Smut, Shapeshifting, Stalking, Tom Riddle is Not Voldemort, Tomione Smut Fest 2020, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, Young Tom Riddle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:42:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24242992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/januarywren/pseuds/januarywren
Summary: “I could give you everything, you know,” she didn’t turn her head at his familiar refrain, instead watching as the moon rose, its rays drifting through the lace curtains. “You would only have to say yes.”“Tom,” Hermione said, her exasperated tone one he knew all too well."Hermione," Tom mocked, his hand resting on the small of her back. He felt every vertebra of her spine, his fingers lightly tracing them. She was so small in comparison to himself, ore like the little bird that he'd once called her than he cared for her to be. "Or is it 'Mione now?"He was careful, ever so careful, as he felt her stiffen against him.He didn’t let go, instead, shifting to hold her closer. He knew that she needed him there, the warmth of his body seeping into hers. His arms slipped around her naked waist and pulled her back flush against his chest. No, he thought. He would never let her go again, no matter what she said.He had already lost his wife, his mate once, and wouldn’t do so again.“Never to you."Tomione Smut Fest 2020 | Affair
Relationships: Hermione Granger & Neville Longbottom, Hermione Granger & Tom Riddle, Hermione Granger/Neville Longbottom, Hermione Granger/Tom Riddle
Comments: 72
Kudos: 315
Collections: Tomione Smut Fest 2020





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sook](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sook/gifts), [MoonyStars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonyStars/gifts), [Crepusculo1997](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crepusculo1997/gifts), [Stille_und_regen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stille_und_regen/gifts), [sneezingferret](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sneezingferret/gifts), [1TTcouples1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/1TTcouples1/gifts), [buttons1721](https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttons1721/gifts), [KashiZii](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KashiZii/gifts), [PrincessRosalean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrincessRosalean/gifts), [naminami](https://archiveofourown.org/users/naminami/gifts), [NiniJune](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NiniJune/gifts), [terry012227](https://archiveofourown.org/users/terry012227/gifts), [ReverseHipster (jaguaria)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaguaria/gifts), [weestarmeggie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/weestarmeggie/gifts), [quitethesardonic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quitethesardonic/gifts), [darthsakura](https://archiveofourown.org/users/darthsakura/gifts), [Primavera10](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Primavera10/gifts), [jasmage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jasmage/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [TomioneSmutFest20](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/TomioneSmutFest20) collection. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prompt:** Affair AU
> 
> I was so, so very excited to participate in weestermeggie's tomione smut fest this year! I participated last year with the 'breeding kink' (a common kink in my work!) and I wanted to mix things up this year. I chose 'affair', something I would normally never choose. 
> 
> I don't typically read stories revolving around affairs/adultery, nor do I write stories with that theme, but I couldn't resist when I saw the prompt! An idea struck and - here we are. 🌹
> 
> I wanted to dedicate this to some of the most supportive readers of my work - I truly am grateful for all the support, and your comments are always so, so very kind. I love you all, and you give me daily inspiration to write, and share my work with you!
> 
> And as always a huge, huge thank you to anyone whose read my work, left a kudos, or a comment - just know that you're the best. The *BEST*! 💞

“I could give you everything, you know,” she didn’t turn her head at his familiar refrain, instead watching as the moon rose, its rays drifting through the lace curtains. “You would only have to say yes.”

_To me._

_To us._

“Tom,” Hermione said, her exasperated tone one he knew all too well.

"Hermione," Tom mocked, his hand resting on the small of her back. He felt every vertebra of her spine, his fingers lightly tracing them. She was so small in comparison to himself, ore like the little bird that he'd once called her than he cared for her to be. "Or is it 'Mione now?"

He was careful, ever so careful, as he felt her stiffen against him.

He didn’t let go, instead, shifting to hold her closer. He knew that she needed him there, the warmth of his body seeping into hers. His arms slipped around her naked waist and pulled her back flush against his chest. No, he thought. He would never let her go again, no matter what she said.

He had already lost his wife, his mate once, and wouldn’t do so again.

* * *

Mione.

The nickname made Hermione tense, as she shook her head. Gods, what was she doing? Here with him? Tom, her ex-husband, while Neville was off at an international conference -

_Leaving you alone again_ , a voice whispered, _and near Clara’s birthday, no less_.

Her chest ached at the mere thought of her daughter, her birthday being the catalyst for the owl she’d sent to Tom. She knew she wasn’t the same, not after the day when Neville had carried her into St. Mungo’s with blood seeping down her legs.

She swallowed, feeling as Tom traced circles across her breast; drawing her attention back to him, as he’d always managed to do. Once, he’d been her world.

“Never to you,” Hermione said, feeling her cheeks darken. She would always be Hermione to Tom, never Mione. It was a nickname that she’d never wanted at all, one of Neville’s co-workers coming up with it for her.

Her gaze never strayed to the portrait in her room, one that displayed her laughing on her wedding day, while Neville pecked her on the cheek. Her relationship with her husband was nothing like the one she had with Tom -

Nothing, she thought, as her chest ached.

Their couplings were always frenzied, near wild encounters, as he took her wherever and whenever he pleased. The wall behind the kitchen door still had a dent where he’d smashed it in, desperate to find her after their game of hide and go seek, one that had lasted several weeks. She knew the forests as well as he did, having once made them her home before Hogwarts itself had called to her.

Hogwarts -

A distant dream by far.

* * *

As a child of the forest, Hermione had often wished to belong.

She felt uncertainty beneath her skin, restless energy that she couldn't exert. It was the thousandth time she'd wished on a star, that she had met Tom - only he was a mere fox to her then, a fox that had been outcast from his home.

“ _I’ll be your friend_ ,” Hermione had told him, “ _it’s awful to be all alone here_.”

The fox had regarded her outstretched hand with suspicion, its golden eyes burning bright. Her stomach had curled when it hissed, saliva dripping from its fangs; until she’d slowly rummaged in her pocket, and offered some wild berries she’d found, hours earlier. The fox, or Tom as he introduced himself later had snatched them from her hand, and gobbled them down; all while watching her with weary eyes.

Yet, he’d never left her side after that.

“ _You’re a boy! A real boy!_ " she'd cried, the first time the fox had transformed into a dark-haired, and distrusting, little boy. He'd scowled at her for starting the obvious, and they'd bickered - until she'd stepped on a fallen wasp's nest, and they'd had to run (very, very fast). He'd dragged her along, his hand tight about hers until they'd reached a wet cave to hide in. There, they'd covered themselves in mud, and something between them was sealed.

They were the children of the woods; the ones that hid in the thicket and learned how to scamper and jump from tree to tree. They observed the centaurs at a distance, and made friends with the giant frogs that fished from the rivers, and slept in the embrace of a hippogriff, one that often followed them deep within the forest. Whether Tom scampered on all fours or led on two feet, he never strayed far from her.

“ _You’re mine_ ," he'd told her one day after she'd worked up the nerve to ask him why.

She'd bristled at his comment, and tossed her curls in response. Still, she hadn't disagreed, as she felt magic itself entwine their hands together. He was the only one that she had ever wanted, and she thought he felt the same in turn, until the day that _they_ came.

With swirling black robes, and masks covering their face, they explained that children couldn’t run away, and make a life of their own in the forest or the sea, or wherever they might please. They all had to grow up one day, and the magic that ran through their veins - yes, magic -

It wouldn’t be constrained. It couldn’t.

“ _You wouldn’t want to hurt anyone, now would you_?”

One of the men had taken Hermione’s hand in his, while Tom disappeared.

“ _Come back_!”

Hermione blinked, realizing that Tom had turned her to face him, and drawn the covers up to her chin. It was just like when they were younger, and he would pull the sole blanket they had across her, knowing how she liked to bury beneath it. Even on the coldest nights, she and Tom had felt warm in their burrow; his furred body often wrapped around hers.

It was in the Gryffindor dorms that Hermione felt the coldest, without a friend beside her. She had learned to scurry through the ancient halls alone and took refuge in the library, the likes of which she had never known before. She had no memory of her life before the forest, no fleeting sight of her parents, or siblings, or even a beloved toy. She knew nothing outside of flora and fauna, and the feelings that swept through her veins.

She never told Tom of the nights that she'd spent alone in her bed, trying her best to stifle her tears with her pillow, or the days that she spent hiding from her classmates. She was an outcast among them, no one having any use for the girl who came from the Forbidden Forest and had neither family nor name. It was no small comfort that magic didn't feel the same, as she quickly excelled at putting the magical theory that she read about into practice, and gained her House numerous points.

It was toward the end of her second year, when she neared the Forbidden Forest’s edge to look for a familiar fox, that she’d met Neville. Sweet, and timid Neville who’d dropped his basket full of herbs, when she said hello to him.

Hermione had scampered to help him collect the herbs, along with his familiar, Trevor, that had been nestled in the basket too. It had taken hours to find him, while she and Neville whispered about the plants that grew deep in the forest, and trees that grew leaves until the entire forest was dark, even amid a summer day. Neville was fascinated by her stories, and when thick, globs of tears ran down her cheeks, he’d wiped them away with his sleeve. “ _I-I’m glad that you’re here, Hermione_ ,” he’d confessed, “ _I don’t think I could ever find Trevor by myself_!”

Neville had often sought her company after that and had promised to tell her if he heard of anyone spotting a fox come near the forest’s edge. Hermione hadn’t told him of her friend, Tom, only of _a_ fox -

She couldn’t say more than that, her heart burning in her chest.

It was a secret of her own, one that she didn’t want to share with Neville. No, she couldn’t share it with him, nor the dreams that she had of Tom coming back to her. (How many times had she passed by a window, looking toward the forest, and wishing that Tom would come home? Or she was his home, she reasoned, the same as he was hers.).

And Neville had never asked, not even in their sixth year when Hermione awoke from his bed and approached the dorm windows. There, she’d seen a fox pacing on the edge of the lawn.

* * *

Tom -

It was Tom!

She hadn’t thought, she hadn’t stopped for a moment, as she ran through the castle, and found her way to the wet lawn. She’d run toward him in her bare feet, and her arms outstretched before the fox had launched himself into her arms.

“ _Tom! It’s you_ -“

“ _It’s me_ ,” he’d whispered, low and urgent as he was a boy once more.

Only he wasn’t, she realized, as his body had covered hers. He was a man, the boy that she had known left far behind, the same as she wasn’t the girl that he had known. (Was she? Her breath stuttered and -) His gaze had searched hers, bright, golden eyes boring into hers as if he knew her anxiety -

“ _Tom_ ,” she’d choked. “ _You came back_ -“

He’d kissed her then, wholly, and fiercely. He’d left no room for her to breathe as he swept her into his arms, and made all thought flee her mind. She wanted nothing more than for him to take her then, feeling more than she’d ever felt toward Neville. She was shameless as Tom knelt before her, and nuzzled his face against her bare legs; before she shuddered and felt his tongue upon her.

He lapped at the come running down her legs, the mix of Neville’s seed and her own, virgin release. He went up and up, until he rolled her nightgown up too, and nosed her cunt with his face. He wanted to have her there, and she wanted him too; her hands burying themselves in his dark hair. This was what she had dreamed of, this was who she had always needed. He was relentless in his greed and his desire, his tongue thrusting inside her. She cried his name as she came, and then -

He had her again, as he positioned her into place, urging her on to her hands and knees, on the wet ground itself. She trusted him, as she placed her heart in his hands as if nothing had ever changed between them again. He took her then, the same way that they had once seen centaurs take one another as if they were animals in truth. As if she were his mate. There were no thoughts of debasement or abuse as she writhed beneath him, breathy cries escaping her lips.

He sent a relentless pace; one that left her gasping and her fingers made searing marks in the ground, as his hips snapped against hers. He was so, so much larger than she was, shielding her from the world. He sank his teeth in her shoulder, making her collapse against the ground; pleasure burning through her veins. It was like nothing she’d known before, Neville’s fumbling’s only an hour before having no comparison to Tom. After they came, he pulled her against him, and nuzzled her cheek, as sweetly as the boy he had once been.

He’d whispered to her a fantastically terrible story, one of Aurors and deceit, of him giving way to his nature as he crashed through the forest, and swam through countless rivers and brooks, to hide himself away. “ _There was a man once_ ,” he confessed, as she nuzzled her face against his bare chest. “ _I was caught in his snare as a child, and he thought he could own me_. _He tried his best to, as he took me home, and confined me to one of his rooms_.”

“ _What happened to him, Tom_?”

He’d cradled her face in his hands, making her eyes meet his once more. “ _Do you want me to tell you, little one_?”

They both knew that she already knew the answer in truth; the day that she had met him in the woods, blood had stained his muzzle. Still, she held him near and wanted nothing more than for him to claim her as his own.

And he had, over and over again, until the sun rose, and he fled to the forest once more.

She had never wanted him to let go.

* * *

“Come home,” Tom whispered, both of them in the present once again.

“It’s too late,” Hermione replied, wanting to close her eyes as she felt his spend on her thighs. Tom offered her an impossible dream, one like the months Hermione had spent with him after graduating from Hogwarts, the sole year that Neville knew little about. He had never asked, and she had never offered, as so many things stood between them.

Tom had waited on the green after her graduation, sweeping her into his arms and whispering how proud he was. He was a man then, a man who hid the beast inside him. They married in the heart of the forest, pledging their love for one another, and wrapping flowers around their hands.

They found a home near the forest, a small cottage where no one would look twice at them, and she could write to her heart’s content. They spent every night together, laying beneath the stars, or in their bed; where they knew the touch of each other more than they knew their name.

But he hadn’t left the beast behind, no -

Hermione had known that well, after finding the prior owner of the cottage buried near.

Tom was more than a man, Hermione admitted amidst bitter tears, he was a beast. He took what he wanted, and had never learned the morals of the world around him, nor did he wish to have them. He was unburdened and free, and his bruising kisses took her breath away. He was too much, and not enough, and she ran without looking back.

(That was a lie. She’d sobbed as she ran, looking back once, twice, and again.)

“And if you carry my young?” Tom asked, his hand moving to cup her naked breast. She shivered at his touch, her own body betraying her. She never could hide herself away, not from Tom. “If your breasts become heavy, and your stomach rounds, what will you tell your _husband_ then?” he skimmed his lips across hers, sweet and gentle. “The husband that hasn’t fucked you in months, Hermione.”

“ _I wanted you here_ ,” he said, “ _I wanted you with me always, Hermione. I still do_.”

But she hadn’t been, as the Aurors had taken her to Hogwarts and he hid behind. The forest’s edge was as close as he dared to come, until the night she’d allowed Neville to fuck her -

“ _You’re mine_ ,” Tom reminded her, with every encounter. “ _Not his. Never his.”_

It was his jealousy, not his love for her that had driven him out. It was this that Hermione remembered, the times she rode Tom’s face until her come soaked his skin, and his lips were left red. She’d slip back into bed after, sometimes turning her back toward him entirely, as she waited for him to go.

Other times, their hands entwined as he took her, and there was nothing between them but one another. She would watch his face as his brow grew taut, and he groaned her name, before spilling warm rushes of his seed inside her. Those were the times that hurt the most, as she wrapped her legs around him, and urged him deeper inside her as if she could keep him there without end.

Sometimes she would finger herself after he left her, spreading the remains of his come over her clit, and up, up across her stomach and her breasts, where she would paint her darkened nipples with it. She would lick her fingers after; his salty, even musky taste one that she knew well, and always wanted to taste again. These were things she never would share, things that she would never do for Neville.

Only for the one that she’d always wanted.

“ _I wish you’d come sooner_ -“

“ _I wanted you here_ -“

“ _Neville saw me, as no one else did_ -“

“Tom,” Hermione whispered, “I…I don’t know what will happen,” that was something she never thought she would say, yet it was the truth, as thoughts of her affair kept her awake at night. “I don’t.”

She had a home with Neville on the very grounds of Hogwarts, after he’d taken up the position as the Herbology professor, and she wrote mystery novels. She had a familiar of her own, Crookshanks, a half-kneazle that Neville had purchased for her when they were in their third year, and she still cared for Trevor, while Neville was away.

But every moment with Tom, she felt alive; truly, and wholly _there_.

She hesitated a moment, before pushing three, little words forward with her tongue. They were words that she could never take back, words that she had little intention of dismissing. “I just know that I love you, Tom.”

“You do, don’t you?” Tom asked slowly, as if it were an impossible thing, that he wanted to believe in.

“I do.”

And he said it too.

* * *

It took only a drop of his tincture in her tea to make her sleep.

Tom spared a glance in the car mirror, observing her in the back seat again. He felt a warmth in his chest from her and her alone; one that had become an unbearable ache, a terrible coldness, when he was away from her.

Something that wouldn’t happen again.

He knew, this time, how to hide the beast behind the man. He had been careless and arrogant, he admitted, before. He’d expected Hermione to stay with him, despite the blood on his hands. He’d forgotten how she’d belonged to the world of man, far longer than she’d been with him, in the forest once more. She wanted him to be more than he was as if he too had been dragged to Hogwarts like she was.

But now, he had learned every lesson Hermione wanted him to know well. He'd gathered her books and other, special knick-knacks in the trunk, as well as the clothing she wore most often. He felt a thrill of pleasure when he realized that she favored creams and blues, the colors he’d always favored on her.

The rest, Tom left behind in the home that she had made with Neville, the home that he would never allow her to flee to again. Flames danced and leaped, lighting the midnight sky, as their home burned to the ground.

(Oh, Tom knew well that Neville wouldn’t be home for weeks, and there was no one in the house - Hermione would have nothing to fear, nor cry over.) And by the time her wayward husband did return, she would be long gone, with him.

“I’m taking you home, little one,” Tom murmured, his heart light in his chest. “To where you belong.”

_With me, always_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chat with me: https://januarywren.wixsite.com/januarywren 🌹 
> 
> https://januarywren.tumblr.com/ 🌹
> 
> and ask for me my discord! 🌹
> 
> Beta'd by quitethesardonic, thank you! 🦝🖤


	2. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry Neville -
> 
> Really sorry. 😩💞
> 
> TW: Miscarriage/coping with the loss of a child

Neville twirled the daffodil between his fingers, content to watch the petals fall. 

“ _Oh! How terrible -_ “ one girl whispered, just loud enough to be heard.

“ _Mhm. It burned right to the ground, with nothing left inside.”_

_“He had a wife too, didn’t he?_ ”

“ _No, no_ ,” another girl joined, “ _Professor_ _Longbottom never married, I doubt he’s ever been on a date_.”

Neville murmured a Silencing spell, one of the few spells that he could cast without a wand. It proved necessary in the past months, as he found himself without a home or a wife; one that none around him remembered. It was as if he’d awoken from a dream, with the world unchanged around him.

Only -

It was worse than anything that he could imagine, it was worse than anything he could have ever dreamed of, for Neville was entirely alone.

“I remember you,” Neville said, even if there wasn’t another soul who believed him, “Hermione.”

Her kisses were sweet in the morning, and his words were tender before either of them remembered the tangled mess between them. It was one that forced them apart, leaving him to his gardens and his classes, while she had a life of her own, one that kept her far from him, regardless of whether they shared the same bed.

He remembered the silkiness of her curls, and the richness of their color; the same as he remembered how they tickled his skin, and the amusement he felt. He laughed when he was with her, the heaviness of his chest lifting in her presence. Days with Hermione were spent in the sun, unlike the horrid days of his childhood when his grandmother watched him for signs of madness.

There was a disease in their line, a tinge of unbalance that made the Longbottoms never quite right. His grandmother’s house was a place of muted laughter and stifled rooms, for joy was never let in, no, nothing was allowed in.

White petals soon covered his Oxfords.

"I will always remember you," Neville said, without pausing to consider whether he meant the words as a sacred prayer, a pretty oath, or a curse. For there was something inside him that ached for the presence of his wife as if he'd realized that he'd never quite had a hold on her.

As a girl, she'd always been just out of reach, her kindness, and her keen intelligence something he found beyond him. He was the boy in her shadow and had been happy, even when his heart whispered that he wasn't enough.

He would never be.

For in her heart, Neville knew there was another, one who went without name, and without a face. He was the boy in the light beside her, the one who caused her gaze to shutter, and her words fell silent as she heard his call.

Yet there was never a sighting - never a whisper of a name, or his presence -

And Neville found that he never wanted to know if it was the Longbottom folly, the familial madness, or whether it was the truth that only he recognized. He woke up screaming from nightmares of his parents in the hospital, never seeing nor hearing him, on the visits that his grandmother forced him to take, that saw him standing at their bedsides. They were visits that even Hermione knew nothing about, Neville always finding his tongue numb at the thought of confessing all to her.

He would have all of her, except her pity.

It was the sole emotion that Neville had never desired from Hermione, not even when he considered that it might bring her closer. Lies had risen to his tongue, and the truth had caught in his throat, as he pushed it down, down, down -

It wasn’t who he was. It never was, and never would be.

“I tried,” Neville whispered, quiet even in his own classroom, “I tried, Hermione, Merlin knows.”

He said the words, even as he tasted the lies on his tongue. There were the nights of silence, the nights where coldness had settled into their very bones until they couldn’t warm themselves again, in love’s embrace. There were no broken dishes, there were no screaming matches, there was no feeling at all.

There was only an ache for everything to be the same, for everything to be more than it ever was before. They were the things that Neville longed not to remember; they were the things he would always remember.

“Gods -“

He wouldn't open the door to their cottage, and find her on the doorstep; shivering and with tear-filled eyes, the same as Neville wouldn't find their cottage standing once more. There were spells that would recover what was lost, and repair the foundation but Neville had turned away from it all.

There was nothing that he wanted from the rubble, no, there was nothing that he needed from the dark ash, for none of it would bring Hermione back.

Or their child.

A lump formed in his throat then, as his thoughts strayed exactly where he never wanted them to go. It was the reason why he stayed cloistered in his apartments at Hogwarts, and in his classroom, and in his vast gardens that teemed to the brim with herbs, and wonderous flowers. None of it oversaw all that he’d left behind, none of it knew of what was buried on the grounds behind his once beloved home.

Clara -

She was the child they both had dreamed of, and wanted, more than they wanted anything else. Neville found himself delighted at the thought of a child with his wife, whether it was a little girl with his sweet nature, and her mother’s curls, or a boy with his mother’s dark eyes and his earnest smile. And he found that Hermione wanted it too, as she whispered in his ear, and drew their daydreams across his skin.

When his seed had quickened within her, and the spell they cast glowed, they had held the other tight. They would be a family, their child raised on Hogwarts very ground; that held pretty days and the pursuit of knowledge for both of their parents.

Neville had the picture of the ultrasound still, tucked away inside of his teaching robes.

It wasn’t meant to be, none of it was.

He trembled as he remembered how he’d carried Hermione into St. Mungo's, with tears streaming down both of their faces. It was then that he learned there were no words to convey the loss of a child, nor was it something that he could move past. He could only accept it, remembering the day without needing to circle a date on the calendar.

He tipped his head back, his eyes fluttering closed as he felt tears gather.

It wasn't grief that he and his wife had shared, as they turned their backs to one another, and went without words for days -

Until he'd awoken to Hermione frantically cleaning the house while wearing her old muggle clothes. She’d swept and she’d dusted, and she'd done everything by hand, with him joining her until every room stung their senses with antiseptic. It wasn’t enough, no -

Nothing was, as they’d slipped to their knees after, and held one another as they cried. 

It was the closest they came to acknowledge their loss, it was the only time they expressed their feelings openly to one another. There was something that died between them when they lost their child, something they couldn’t find their way back to. And the fool that he was -

Neville swallowed, his throat growing taut.

The fool that he was, he would do anything to have her back.

He found that the thought of her with another didn’t disturb him, so much as the thought of his life continuing without her. She was his truest friend during their childhood and his first love. 

His only love.

She was the same as a sugar quill melting on his tongue, the favorite that none would ever measure up to.

Hermione had so long stayed in his heart, that there was no room for another, there was no place for another. It was more than owning her, or possessing her, as Neville knew that she had his heart in her hands. She always had.

He pressed his palms against his eyes, and said nothing, as his grandmother had taught him. “ _Smother the world inside of you, Neville_ ,” his grandmother whispered in his ear, “ _and the world will never know you, not in truth_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chat with me: https://januarywren.wixsite.com/januarywren 🌹 
> 
> https://januarywren.tumblr.com/ 🌹
> 
> and ask for me my discord! 🌹
> 
> Beta'd by Grammarly! 🦝🖤


End file.
